Hello Community (and Game Devs),

I'm new to A Game of Thrones Card Game (1st Ed), I only have the Core Set + 2 Expansion (KotS & PotS)(Revised) and I'm looking forward the new 2nd Ed. I actually have a few question:

1. I notice some art style inconsistency, will the new 2nd Ed cards have consistent art style? (Sample: Lannisport Brothel (Core), Joffrey Baratheon (PotS), House Messenger (PotS) feels a little off to me). I've seen 2nd Ed art of Jeor Mormont will the cards have those kind of art style?

2. Will the 2nd Ed Core set have 4 Houses? Is faction the same as House? " A starter deck for each faction is included within the Core Set for A Game of Thrones: The Card Game Second Edition ". I heard there will be 8 Houses, does that mean it will have 8 starter deck?

The developers rarely, if ever, respond to board posts. And the community at large knows about as much as you do. All we can really do is answer from experience with AGoT and other of FFG's LCGs, so take the following with a grain of salt as educated guesses.

1. The inconsistency of art style you note in 1st Ed. is is effectively that the different types of cards have different art templates. Leaving aside the fact that the different color schemes for the different factions can make even the same art style/template look different, the game is designed such that a character has a different art format from a location, which has a different format from an event, and so on. Using your examples, the Lannisport Brothel is going to look rather different from Joffrey Baratheon because one is a location and the other is a character. And Joffrey Baratheon is going to look slightly different from House Messenger because, although both are characters, Joffrey has two distinct factions while House Messenger has only one. Within cards of the same type, the art is very consistent (although, as mentioned, the different faction color schemes can make a Baratheon character feel very different from a Lannister character).

The different art templates and card layouts, as well as the different color schemes based on faction, is consistent throughout all of FFGs LCGs. There is no reason to think that AGoT 2nd Ed. will be any different. So while all character cards are likely to look something like the Jeer Mormont you've seen (with color variations for faction), the attachments, locations, and events will probably look different - although still thematically similar enough to recognize them as part of the same game.

If you are noting some sort of style inconsistency more pronounced than the different card types, I think we'll need a more concrete example of what feels "off" to you about the 1st Ed. Art.

2. All the press and promotional literature says that there will be enough cards in the 2nd Ed. Core set for each of the 8 playable factions, so unless they are lying to us about having a starter deck for each faction, or about the number of factions, then yes - there will be a starter deck for each of the 8 factions. Given that the 40K:Conquest Core Set has 7 starter decks, the inclusion of 8 starter decks is more than believable. Of course, the starter decks are likely to only have 25-30 cards each, and there might only be plots enough for 4 decks at a time, but we won't know the exact configuration for a while yet.

Thanks for the quick reply @ktom,

alright! im down with 2 (is there a particular site for those press releases?) I am actually new in LCG in general...

I guess I clarify 1:

It's not much about the template of the card, I understand that It had to be designed like to differenciate location, characters, attachement, etc. The inconsistency I was talking about is the illustration art:

• if you look closely to Lannisport Brothel , Joffrey Baratheon(PotS) --> it looks like a cartoonish/anime-ish compare to, lets say, Cersei Lannister Cards (Core) (AToT)
• House Messenger --> same issue, looks like a cartoon, PLUS its strange it has a Middle Eastern alphabet... nothing agaist M.Easterns, its just feels inconsistent with the artworks.

What I'm trying to get at I guess is, will they have consistent guidelines in terms of illustration/artwork(s) in the card(s)?

Since they commission the artwork from a wide variety of artists, the art styles frequently differ. That has some advantages (not over-reliance on a very small number of artists, more room for artistic expression, more variety in art, more different and unique perspectives on the world), and some disadvantages (sometimes some of your favourite cards mechanically are in an art style you dislike, the overall look of the game is less consistent, different representations of the same character on different cards can differ widely).

Will they constrain their artists more, or re-use the same artists more often in second edition? At this point, we have no real way of knowing, except by looking at the art currently revealed:

http://www.cardgamedb.com/forums/index.php?/topic/18752-2nd-edition-artwork/

http://i.imgur.com/QwEsTNN.jpg

I think that's everything we have so far!

I would say we're likely to see a higher, more consistent bar for artwork going forward. The artwork he mentioned is all really old stuff, in styles they really got away from in more recent cycles.